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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Finding Bigfoot - Virginia Field Notes

Even before going to Virginia, I knew the state had a lot of excellent bigfoot
habitat. Between the various online
databases, there are over 70 reported bigfoot sightings on record. It is my guess that less than one percent of
sightings ever get reported to anyone, so that means there is probably quite a
bit of activity in the area. I wanted to
check it out for myself, firsthand.

The evidence that brought us to Virginia was a video
obtained by a man named Chuck Newton.
The video is called, “The Beast of Gum Hill” because of a nearby
topographical landmark. It shows Chuck
riding an ATV up a river bed when a dark, upright figure walks across the river
a ways ahead of him. Chuck stops his ATV
and points at it while looking back at the camera. In an authentically startled voice, Eric, the
videographer, asks, “What was that?!”
The two men immediately turned around and rode out of the area,
according to the witness.

The original "Best of Gum Hill" video. Note that the word "wood booger"
is in the YouTube title. Read on to find why this is interesting.

While our recreation indicated that the figure was smaller
than Bobo, it is interesting to note that we could clearly see that Bobo was
wearing clothing as he clumsily strode across the creek. His “Gone ‘Squatchin’” hat was also
obvious. The figure in the film was
uniformly colored from head to foot, with no visible skin on the hands nor
face. Interestingly, Chuck told us that
even though he couldn’t tell if it was hairy or not, he does remember that the
figure was uniformly colored from head to toe.

On the ATV ride out to the site, we rode right by a deer hunter who was clothed in a camouflaged-colored gillie suit. It is at least possible that Chuck ran across a hunter who walked across the knee-deep creek. However, as I noted in the episode, I think it's strange human behavior to not acknowledge the ATV riders with a friendly wave or a "hello." That just isn't what I find humans do out in the woods. Generally speaking, I find that people make some sort of contact, even if it's just a nod, because out in the wilds, one never knows who might save someone's life. I've stumbled across people in all sorts of dire circumstances while I was out bigfooting. Helping change tires, or even helping to drag cars out of snowdrifts isn't exactly rare in the back woods. It's always a good idea to at least wave to strangers out there. This figure did not even look at Chuck and his friend.

Chuck shared with us a story told to him by his friend’s
grandfather about the Gum Hill area.
Growing up, Chuck’s friend had been repeatedly warned by his grandfather
to not walk the woods at night, or the “wood booger” would get him. Had this old man seen something himself, or
was it just a persistent rumor about the area?
Either way, it was an excellent location for a night investigation.

Prepping the ATV's for the ride in.

The first night investigation was a bit frustrating, though
interesting at the same time. Early on,
Ranae and I heard something moving below us only to find that it was a crew
member who had hiked up the trail to make a campsite for Matt’s solo
investigation. Ranae and I then moved a
good distance away to the pass between two valleys, both to avoid hearing any
of the crew, as well as to investigate an obvious travel route and choke point
between two river systems. While at the
high ground, we again heard something large moving around below us. This was no crew member, though we never
found out what exactly it was.

Another high point of the Virginia expedition was visiting
with Debbie and Kirsten. Kirsten saw a
bigfoot while retrieving the mail on her property one morning, but this was not
the only thing that has happened on their homestead. There have been multiple sightings, including
at least two daylight observations of the creatures. Their home has often been hit by projectiles
from the woods, or seemingly been slapped by open hands from the outside. On one occasion, a pile of rocks appeared
with a “gift” laid on top (a rotten old Nerf football).

The rock pile (more than a year old) and the football
that was left on it, possibly by a bigfoot.

Just as in the case of the Bridges is Florida, Debbie and
Kirsten’s home was recently built (in 2007, I believe) and as long as they have
lived there, bigfoots have been making their presence known. The humans are again the intruders on bigfoot
territory, which probably accounts for the rocks being thrown at their
house. Interestingly, the rocks aren’t
thrown as much anymore compared to when they first moved in. Also of note is that both Debbie and Kirsten have
seen the sasquatches on the property, but Debbie’s husband (Kirsten’s father) has not.

One witness at the town hall meeting presented a sighting
report with several very interesting details, and I was chosen to look into it with
the help of Ranae. A man named Anthony
saw a bigfoot from below and the other side of a waterfall.

Abram Falls, near Gum Hill, was the location
of the sighting, but not of our recreation.
Abram Falls is on private land.
The area is frequented by teenagers during the summer, and like many
teenagers, they party and go swimming at the swimming hole. One person had recently fallen from above the
waterfall and either got seriously hurt or died in the fall. We could not get a permit to film at the
location because of some sort of litigation (I’m thankfully left out of the
pre-production part of the show, and details such as these are not known to
me). The recreation site was found by a
producer with the help of Anthony himself so as to best approximate the
location. I was shown photographs of
Abram Falls, and I have to say that they did an excellent job choosing an
appropriate spot. The resemblance was
uncanny.

Besides the amazing athleticism shown by the bigfoot
(clearing such a distance in three bounding leaps), there were a couple other
interesting details from Anthony’s account that did not make the final edit of
the show. Above the falls, he found a tiered area where it seemed that wild,
edible plants had been encouraged to grow, or perhaps even purposefully planted. One tier had ginseng, the second had berries,
and a third level had touch-me-nots. All
three of these plants are edible at various times throughout the year, and each
tier seemed to contain the specified plant almost
exclusively.

Though there is no clear connection between this area and the sasquatch that was observed nearby. Perhaps there is no connection at all, and it’s
all coincidence. However, could it be that sasquatches have some level of awareness of agriculture? I do not know, but it
is an intriguing avenue of thought to travel down. After all, sasquatches are undoubtedly our
closest genetic relative, so perhaps it’s not too big a logical leap to think
that some bigfoot somewhere might have figured out how to transplant wild herbs to
specific locations for ease of gathering. For now, I'll just be aware of this detail and look for patterns in the coming years that might support this possibility.

(It should be noted that since this detail has come out, I have contacted two trusted long-term witnesses and asked if any such behavior has ever been noted on their properties. No behavior like this had been. However, in one case the local sasquatches had cleared away brush from where they were routinely fed, but for an unknown reason, and certainly not for agricultural use.)

The site of Anthony's sighting recreation.

Another intriguing aspect to Anthony’s encounter was not
mentioned in the show. Anthony found a
number of deer carcasses at the base of the falls, twisted and broken from an
obvious fall from the cliffs above.
Several of these carcasses had their hind legs ripped, not cut, from the torso, and also had the shoulder strips
removed. Could it be that the
sasquatches in the area had run panicked deer off the dangerous waterfall to
their deaths, much like Plains Indians did with the buffalo?

I heard another report of this behavior from
one of the long-term witnesses mentioned above. The long-term witness' aunt
was smoking a cigarette on the porch at midnight and saw three or
four large, upright figures chasing deer in the woods in the direction of the
cliff that leads down to the creek behind their house. In the morning, the woman told the property
owner that her neighbors were weird because they were hunting deer without guns, trying to chase deer off
of the cliff, running at full speed at night without lights on in the woods. Weird neighbors, indeed! Big, weird, hairy neighbors!

The last night investigations was at High Knob, a hill with
a history of bigfoot encounters. In
fact, the place where we parked the cars for base camp was the very site of a bigfoot
encounter from several years ago. While
we were out fooling around with iridescent powder and UV flashlights, some
stealthy visitors came by base camp and made their presence known.

The crew and various producers spend their night investigation
time reading, watching movies on their computers, or just hanging out, all the
while monitoring their radios in case the away teams (us in the woods) need something like fresh
batteries, or first aid. On this
occasion, base camp was visited by unseen guests who threw several large rocks
at the U-Haul truck that was rented to haul gear. The rocks hit the “cube truck” with such
force that the producers actually stopped their movies and came out of the
truck to look around. Several of the PA’s
("production assistants," who are essentially there to do whatever is needed)
heard these unseen stalkers in the woods, but thought it was the producer (who
was in the cube truck) messing with them. None of these people thought much about the possibility that bigfoots might be the culprits. Hopefully, on next season's shows we can monitor base camp a bit better to gather some interesting data from there!

It just goes to show, you can’t really out-bigfoot a
bigfoot. They’re better at this than we ever will be.

Other cool things that didn’t make the cut happened on the
shoot as well. This was the episode when
bigfoot-production-assistant, and friend of the sasquatch, Tyler Bounds hit amysterious figure on the road one night.
While Tyler’s story is detailed by Tyler himself elsewhere, here is my
side of the story.

I was asleep, and at 2:24 in the morning my
phone rang. Seeing it was Tyler Bounds, I knew it was
important, so I picked up. Tyler, in a
panicked voice, told me that he had either just hit a person or a bigfoot with
his car. He was speeding up through fog
banks to get on the freeway at the base of High Knob when he looked up too late
and collided with a tall, upright figure standing on the left hand side of the
road. Whatever he hit was far taller
than his car (later measured to be five feet, five inches tall) and seemingly
just standing there. Tyler stopped his
car, got out, and ran back to where he hit the figure, but found nobody. He called out to the darkness saying he was
just there to help. He told me that at
that point he was thinking he hit somebody’s grandfather who had dementia or something. Nobody answered, so Tyler freaked out a
little harder and continued to call out while searching the area. Nothing was found.

The dent on the front quarter panel

from whatever-it-was that Tyler hit.

A close up of the rear view mirror (that was pushed in).

Note the dirty marks that seem to indicate hair.

The next day, Tyler returned to the spot to search the area
in daylight. No dead bodies were found in the
brush, so the adjacent meadows were also scoured. There was a deer herd nearby, and it is
possible that Tyler hit a deer.

I have to
wonder what Tyler collided with, though.
He is no camping newbie, and when I spoke to him that night in the wee
hours, it was clear that at that point he thought he probably hit a person. He was absolutely sober that night, and had his head about him. At the time, I even suggested to him that it
could have been a deer, and he admitted that it was a possibility. He just said that it looked like a man at the time.

Bobo and I made a fuss about this possibility with the
producers. They eventually let us swab
the car for DNA, and they filmed us doing so.
It is part of our contract that any evidence gathered belongs to the powers-that-be,
so the sample is in the hands of Ping Pong Productions at the moment. I no longer have control over it, but I did
my part by gathering it. I don’t think
that any testing will be done on it. DNA
testing is quite expensive, especially when there is a possibility that it
could be a deer.

Another highlight of the Virginia expedition was what I did
on our off-night. Bobo, and I, along
with the sound technician went to the birth place of country music, the CarterFamily Fold. Every weekend for as long
as anyone remembers (well, you know what I mean), the Carter Family Fold has
been having mountain music concerts for the locals. I was lucky enough to attend that night.

The band was smoking, the people were super
friendly (even coaxing Bobo into attending church the next day), and the venue
was perfect for some good old fashioned country music dancing and fun. It was not only a highlight of the trip, it
was a highlight of my life. It was not a concert, but a romp in a living museum on the earliest moments of American country music. I danced my butt off at the foot of the last stage Johnny Cash ever performed on. I hung out with June Carter's granddaughter. I partook in a small bit of history.

What a crazy bunch of events. You must wonder if your life is one serendipitous adventure after another. Lucky boy! We are enjoying watching the team's exploits. You are a great group of intelligent people with tons of enthusiasm. It's infectious.

Great episode, when you and Renee were trying to listen all that could be heard was the camera crew shifting around, it made it diffiuclt to hear what you guys were hearing, tell them to quit moving!

I don't see why Renee would find it hard to believe the Squatch would cross right there. Most animal are creatures of habit and will take the trails and paths, just because the woodbooger heard the ATV doesn't mean he'd go another way, he might've hoped to get by without getting noticed. Besides if he was the woodbooger and he terrorized children to stay inside and night he might not be too afraid.

I wonder why you guys don't approach it in the same way the "Planet Earth" crew do. Forget a time limit,they'll sit in a bush in the middle of nowhere for MONTHS,waiting to see something. Or at least treat it like a hunt. Get the best hunters you can find and tell em' its the hunt of their lives and they get to try and find bigfoot. Love the show man!

I am from an area east of where this was filmed,about 2 hours on them Mt. roads.I was all over these hills n hollers from Martinsville to Blacksburg,North western North Carolina through eastern Tenn.,Kentucky and West "By God" the whole time I was growing up.I will tell you theres things in those highlands you would never expect.As for the Terraces,old timers used to do that to grow "sang" and other herbs.

I loved "Operation Pixie Dust"! It was so cool to see the bait stations with animal footprints. I was wondering what brand of powder was used? I did a search for non-toxic UV theft detection powder and found a few different choices. I just want to make sure I buy the same kind used on the show since it lasted about 24 hours after being sprinkled in the woods.

FINDING BIGFOOT is a great show and is my favorite show on animal planet.I trust all of you and give you great credit.I think bigfoot is real and i don't think anyone who wants to fake a sighting or make a hoax video...they aren't true bigfoot fans

hay hay cliff! i LOVE the show. I always look forward to it every week. I am a fan of the idea of bigfoot, and see no reason for the creatures to be anything but real. keep it up, and never stop looking.

a theory i found really cool (that i am sure you have heard of) is the primate Gigantopithecus that lived in asia a very long time ago, and migrated to north america along the massive land bridge that use to conected russia and north america.Could Gigantopithecus have evolved over time into what we all know today as Bigfoot?

1. He's on a frickin' ATV, why didn't he go after it?2. If I were out hunting, and someone was making a lot of noise on an ATV, I would probably feel more like flipping him the bird than I waving a friendly hello.

Sam from Eastern Canada.Having lived in BC for 10 years I know of several people who had Sasquatch sightings near Harrison Hot Springs and its Sasquatch Provincial Park; your show brings back great memories of my time there. Unfortunately, the big white things here aren't Yetis but icebergs. I was wondering though, since you went through so much effort in the Virginia case with the iridescent powder why you didn't also, or instead, use game cams? Thanks.

Let me first say I am a big fan of the show, but the bigfoot researchers could take some pointers from serious hunters about concealment and waiting out an animal. Most North American animals' main lines of defense are their keen sense of sight, smell and hearing. The bigfoot researchers disregard those facts for TV drama. It wouldn't make for good TV if they found bigfoot on the first episode. If they were serious about finding concrete proof or actual footage, they would stay put for days or weeks in a so-called "hot spot" until they found it. For a group of people who have basically dedicated their lives to finding real evidence, they give up way too easily.

This article is so cool. Does Bigfoot really exist? Many believe that this is just a creation of the mind but many also think this is really true. Whatever the truth is, I still find this very much interesting, too. Bigfoot really amazes me. I just hope one day, there would be a living proof that this creature really exists. Thanks!